"Sir," murmured De Launay--"We live in strange times----"
"Why, there you speak most truly!" said the King, with emphasis--"We do live in strange times--the very strangest perhaps, since Aeneas Sylvius wrote concerning Christendom. Do you remember the words he set down so long ago?--"It is a body without a head,--a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope or the emperor may shine as lofty t.i.tles, as splendid images,--but they are unable to command, and no one is willing to obey!" History thus repeats itself, De Launay;--and yet with all its past experience, the Roman Church does not seem to realize that it is powerless against the attacks of intellectual common sense. Faith in G.o.d,--a high, perfect, pure faith in G.o.d, and a simple following of the Divine Teacher of G.o.d"s command, Christ;--these things are wise and necessary for all nations; but, to allow human beings to be coerced by superst.i.tion for political motives, under the disguise of religion, is an un-Christian business, and I for one will have no part in it!"
"You will lay yourself open to much serious misconstruction, Sir," said De Launay.
"Let us hope so, Roger!" rejoined the King with a smile--"For if I am never misunderstood, I shall know myself to be a fool! Come,--do not look so glum!--I want you to help me."
"To help you, Sir?" exclaimed De Launay eagerly,--"With my life, if you demand it!"
The King rested one hand familiarly on his shoulder.
"I would rather take my own life than yours, De Launay!" he said--"No,--whatever difficulties I get myself into, you shall not suffer! But--as I told you a while ago,--there is something in me that must have its way. I am sick to death of conventionalities,--you must help me to break through them! You are right in saying that we live in strange times;--they are strange times!--and they may perchance be all the better for a strange King!"
CHAPTER IV
SEALED ORDERS
Some hours later on, Sir Roger de Launay, having left his Sovereign"s presence, and being off duty for a time, betook himself to certain apartments in the west wing of the palace, where the next most trusted personage to himself in the confidence of the King, had his domicile,--Professor von Glauben, resident physician to the Royal Household. Heinrich von Glauben was a man of somewhat extraordinary character and individuality. In his youth he had made a sudden meteoric fame for his marvellous skill and success in surgery, as also for his equally surprising quickness and correctness in diagnosing obscure diseases and tracing them to their source. But, after creating a vast amount of discussion and opposition among his confreres, and almost reaching that brilliant point of triumph when his originality and cleverness were proved great enough to win him a host of enemies, he all at once threw up the game as it were, and, resigning the favourable opportunities of increasing distinction offered him in his native Germany, accepted the comparatively retired and private position he now occupied. Some said it was a disappointment in love which had caused his abrupt departure from the Fatherland,--others declared it was irritation at the severe manner in which his surgical successes had been handled by the medical critics,--but whatever the cause, it soon became evident that he had turned his back on the country of his birth for ever, and that he was apparently entirely satisfied with the lot he had chosen.
His post was certainly an easy and pleasant one,--the members of the Royal family to which his services were attached were exceptionally healthy, as Royal families go; and he was seldom in more than merely formal attendance, so that he had ample time and opportunity to pursue those deeper forms of physiological study which had excited the wrath and ridicule of his contemporaries, as well as to continue the writing of a book which he intended should make a stir in the world, and which he had ent.i.tled "The Moral and Political History of Hunger."
"For," said he--"Hunger is the primal civilizer,--the very keystone and foundation of all progress. From the plain, prosy, earthy fact that man is a hungry animal, and must eat, has sprung all the civilization of the world! I shall demonstrate this in my book, beginning with the scriptural legend of Adam"s greed for an apple. Adam was evidently hungry at the moment Eve tempted him. As soon as he had satisfied his inner man, he thought of his outer,--and his next idea was, naturally, tailoring. From this simple conjunction of suggestions, combined with what "G.o.d" would have to say to him concerning his food-experiment and fig-leaf ap.r.o.n, man has drawn all his religions, manners, customs and morals. The proposition is self-evident,--but I intend to point it out with somewhat emphasised clearness for the benefit of those persons who are inclined to arrogate to themselves the possession of superior wisdom. Neither brain nor soul has placed man in a position of Supremacy,--merely Hunger and Nakedness!"
The Professor was now about fifty-five, but his exceptionally powerful build and robust const.i.tution gave him the grace in appearance of many years younger, though perhaps the extreme composure of his temperament, and the philosophic manner in which he viewed all circ.u.mstances, whether pleasing or disastrous, may have exercised the greatest influence in keeping his eyes clear and clean, and his countenance free of unhandsome wrinkles. He was more like a soldier than a doctor, and was proud of his resemblance to the earlier portraits of Bismarck. To see him in his own particular "sanctum" surrounded by weird-looking diagrams of sundry parts of the human frame, mysterious phials and stoppered flasks containing various liquids and crystals, and all the modern appliances for closely examining the fearful yet beautiful secrets of the living organism, was as if one should look upon a rough and burly giant engaged in some delicate manipulation of mosaics. Yet Von Glauben"s large hand was gentler than a woman"s in its touch and gift of healing,--no surgeon alive could probe a wound more tenderly, or with less pain to the sufferer,--and the skill of that large hand was accompanied by the penetrative quality of the large benevolent brain which guided it,--a brain that could encompa.s.s the whole circle of the world in its observant and affectionate compa.s.sion.
"Ach!--who is there that can be angry with anyone?--impatient with anyone,--offended with anyone!" he was wont to say--"Everybody suffers so much and so undeservedly, that as far as my short life goes I have only time for pity--not condemnation!"
To this individual, as a kind of human calmative and tonic combined, Sir Roger de Launay was in the habit of going whenever he felt his own customary tranquillity at all disturbed. The two were great friends;--friends in their mutual love and service of the King,--friends in their equally mutual but discreetly silent worship of the Queen,--and friends in their very differences of opinion on men and matters in general. De Launay, being younger, was more hasty of judgment and quick in action; but Von Glauben too had been known to draw his sword with unexpected rapidity on occasion, to the discomfiture of those who deemed him only at home with the scalpel. Just now, however, he was in a particularly non-combative and philosophic mood; he was watching certain animalculae wriggling in a gla.s.s tube, the while he sat in a large easy-chair with slippered feet resting on another chair opposite, puffing clouds of smoke from a big meerschaum,--and he did not stir from his indolent att.i.tude when De Launay entered, but merely looked up and smiled placidly.
"Sit down, Roger!" he said,--then, as De Launay obeyed the invitation, he pushed over a box of cigars, and added--"You look exceedingly tired, my friend! Something has bored you more than usual? Take a lesson from those interesting creatures!" and he pointed with the stem of his pipe to the bottled animalculae--"They are never bored,--never weary of doing mischief! They are just now living under the pleasing delusion that the gla.s.s tube they are in is a man, and that they are eating him up alive.
Little devils! Nothing will exhaust their vitality till they have gorged themselves to death! Just like a great many human beings!"
"I am not in the mood for studying animalculae," said De Launay irritably, as he lit a cigar.
"No? But why not? They are really quite as interesting as ourselves!"
"Look here, Von Glauben, I want you to be serious--"
"My friend, I am always serious," declared the Professor--"Even when I laugh, I laugh seriously. My laughter is as real as myself."
"What would you think,"--pursued De Launay--"of a king who freely expressed his own opinions?"
"I should say he was a brave man," answered the Professor; "He would certainly deserve my respect, and he should have it. Even if the laws of etiquette were not existent, I should feel justified in taking off my hat to him."
"Never from henceforth wear a hat at all then," said De Launay--"It will save you the trouble of continually doffing it at every glimpse of his Majesty!"
Von Glauben drew his pipe from his mouth and gazed blankly at the ceiling for a few moments in silence. "His Majesty?" he presently murmured--"Our Majesty?"
"Yes; our Majesty--our King"--replied De Launay--"For some inscrutable reason or other he has suddenly adopted the dangerous policy of speaking his mind. What now?"
"What now? Why nothing particular just now,--unless you have something to tell me. Which, judging from your entangled expression of eye, I presume you have."
De Launay hesitated a moment. The Professor saw his hesitation.
"Do not speak, my friend, if you think you are committing a breach of confidence," he said composedly--"In the brief affairs of this life, it is better to keep trouble on your own mind than impart it to others."
"Oh, there is no breach of confidence;" said De Launay, "The thing is as public as the day, or if it is not public already, it soon will be made so. That is where the mischief comes in,--or so I think. Judge for yourself!" And in a few words he gave the gist of the interview which had taken place between the King and the emissary of the Jesuits that morning.
"Nothing surprises me as a rule,"--said the Professor, when he had heard all--"But if anything could p.r.i.c.k the sense of astonishment anew in me, it would be to think that anyone, king or commoner, should take the trouble to speak truth to a Jesuit. Why, the very essence of their carefully composed and diplomatic creed, is to so disguise truth that it shall be no more recognisable. Myself, I believe the Jesuits to be the lineal descendants of those priests who served Bel and the Dragon. The art of conjuring and deception is in their very blood. It is for the Jesuits that I have invented a beautiful new verb,--"To hypocrise." It sounds well. Here is the present tense,--"I hypocrise, Thou hypocrisest, He hypocrises:--We hypocrise, You hypocrise, They hypocrise." Now hear the future. "I shall hypocrise, Thou shalt hypocrise, He shall hypocrise; We shall hypocrise, You shall hypocrise, They shall hypocrise." There is the whole art of Jesuitry for you, made grammatically perfect!"
De Launay gave a gesture of impatience, and flung away the end of his half-smoked cigar.
"Ach! That is a sign of temper, Roger!" said Von Glauben, shaking his head--"To lift one"s shoulders to the lobes of one"s ears, and waste nearly the half of an exceedingly expensive and choice Havana, shows nervous irritation! You are angry, my friend--and with me!"
"No I am not," replied De Launay, rising from his chair and beginning to pace the room--"But I do not profess to have your phlegmatic disposition. I feel what I thought you would feel also,--that the King is exposing himself to unnecessary danger. And I know what you do not yet know, but what this letter will no doubt inform you,"--and he drew an envelope bearing the Royal seal from his pocket and handed it to the Professor--"Namely,--that his Majesty is bent on rushing voluntarily into various other perils, unless perhaps, your warning or advice may hinder him. Mine has no effect,--moreover I am bound to serve him as he bids."
"Equally am I also bound to serve him;"--said Von Glauben, "And gladly and faithfully do I intend to perform my service wherever it may lead me!" Whereupon, shaking himself out of his rec.u.mbent position, like a great lion rolling out of his lair, he stood upright, and breaking the seal of the envelope he held, read its contents through in silence. Sir Roger stood opposite to him, watching his face in vain for any sign of astonishment, regret or dismay.
"We must do as he commands,"--he said simply as he finished reading the letter and folded it up for safe keeping--"There is no other way; not for me at least. I shall most a.s.suredly be at the appointed place, at the appointed hour, and in the appointed manner. It will be a change; certainly lively, and possibly beneficial!"
"But the King"s life--"
"Is in G.o.d"s keeping!" said Von Glauben,--"Believe me, Roger, no harm comes undeservedly to a brave man with a good conscience! It is a bad conscience which invites mischief. I am a great believer in the law of attraction. The good attracts the good,--the bad, the bad. That is why truthful persons are generally lonely--because nearly all the world"s inhabitants are liars!"
"But the King--" again began Sir Roger.
"The King is a man!" said Von Glauben, with a flash of pride in his eyes--"Which is more than I will say for most kings! Who shall blame him for a.s.serting his manhood? Not I! Not you! Who shall blame him for seeking to know the real position of things in the country he governs?
Not I! Not you! Our business is to guard and defend him--with our own lives, if necessary,--we shall do that with a will, Roger, shall we not?" And with an impulsive quickness of action, he took a sword from a stand of weapons near him, drew it from its scabbard and kissing the hilt, held it out to De Launay who did the same--"That is understood!
And for the rest, Roger my friend, take it all lightly and easily--as a farce!--as a bit of human comedy, with a great actor cast for the chief role. We are only supers, you and I, but we shall do well to stand near the wings in case of fire!"
He drew himself up to his great height and squared his shoulders,--then smiled benevolently.
"I believe it will be all very amusing, Roger; and that your fears for the safety of his Majesty will be proved groundless. Remember, Court life is excessively dull,--truly the dullest form of existence on earth,--it is quite natural that he who is the most bored by it should desire some break in the terrible monotony!"
"The monotony will certainly be broken with a vengeance, if the King continues in his present humour!"--said De Launay grimly.
"Possibly! And let us hope the comfortable self-a.s.surance and complacency of a certain successful Minister may be somewhat seriously disturbed!" rejoined Von Glauben,--"For myself, I a.s.sure you I see sport!"
"And I scent danger,"--said De Launay--"For if any mischance happen to the King, the Prince is not ripe enough to rule."
A slight shadow darkened the Professor"s open countenance. He looked fixedly at Sir Roger, who met his gaze with equal fixity.
"The Prince,"--he said slowly--"is young--"
"And rash--" interposed De Launay.